Goodbye 2023
So buh-bye 2023, a year that went extremely quickly. I began it dancing to “I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You” in a Soho dive with my pals, and ended it joyfully knocked up, drinking non-alcoholic cocktails and sending people pictures of the giant model railway Jools Holland has in his attic (see above).
This is not strictly a cultural round-up or a year in review, for various reasons. It’s missing books, first of all – I rarely read anything new, and presumably no-one is interested in hearing my observation that Luster by Raven Leilani is “really very good” since everyone put that on their list from 2020. I’ve been very slapdash with reading this year and been doing a lot of revisiting, and a lot has been blotted out and overtaken by my decision to finally read the Wolf Hall trilogy. For some reason I’d developed the idea that it was a Good thing to be reading but that it was also dry and hard to get into, but I was doing Hilary a great disservice there and should have known better. These books are extraordinary achievements, both in terms of the rigour of the research and the beauty of the writing – I have been putting off finishing the final book because I think Thomas Cromwell’s fall will make me sad, so I need to get on with that.
TV – this year I especially liked Bridget Christie’s The Change, The Righteous Gemstones and a BBC series about the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth. I still haven’t seen The Bear (I don’t like the way the guy in it regards people like they’re on two different sides of an aquarium glass) and now approaching being a thousand years old I’ve taken violently against meme art of any description. You shouldn’t have to explain that Succession is better than the screenshots of out-of-context dialogue, because really, what do you care if someone thinks it isn’t. Meme art insists on its consumers’ time, energy and emotional attachment, and this rarely ends up as investment in the art itself or any material value for the person who made it. In 2024 I will stop myself before defending millionaires and streaming services, or at least will try. I have watched a lot of shows (inevitably) about the Tudors and the Wars of the Roses. I went on my friend Eleanor Janega’s show to talk about Tudors on the screen, but didn’t cover it all, so more of that another time.
Films: I saw three I liked very much (Fallen Leaves, You Hurt My Feelings and Rye Lane), lots I didn’t, lots I found disappointing and lots I liked well enough but not enough to make an issue of. I would like to make the suggestion that more art is made from people tooling around talking to each other. If I had my way (which I appreciate at this stage is unlikely), all films would be either riffs on the Before trilogy or on Die Hard 4.0. With the exception of Bringing Up Baby and Some Like it Hot I don’t think there’s any need for any other basic film formula – this is the general point as far as I can tell that Michael Owen was trying to make.
It was a very good music year, and after whittling down the album a day I’ve listened to, here is my Top 20 list:
Grian Chatten – Chaos for the Fly
Boygenius – The Record & The Rest
Julie Byrne – The Greater Wings
Sufjan Stevens – Javelin
Lana Del Rey – Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd
Blonde Redhead – Sit Down For Dinner
Joanna Sternberg – I’ve Got Me
Billy Woods – Maps
Youth Lagoon – Heaven is a Junkyard
Hotline TNT – Cartwheel
Aphex Twin – Blackbox Life Recorder 21f/In a Room7 F760
Barwo – Legitimate Cause
Doja Cat – Starlet
Mitski – The Land is Inhospitable and So Am I
Blue Lake – Sun Arcs
Yves Tumor – Praise a Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume (Or Simply: Hot Between Worlds)
Jack Vanzet – Structures
Suzanne Sundfor – Blomi
Slowdive – Everything is Alive
The Japanese House – In the End it Always Does
I’ve also made a playlist of my 40 favourite tracks from the year, made up solely of artists that didn’t make the Top 20 cut (with the exception of “A & W” by Lana, undisputed song of the year).
Look out especially, in my opinion, for “Looking for A Ghost” by Fever Ray, the incredible version of “Hares on the Mountain” by Shirley Collins, “Cagegirl/Camgirl” by Jane Remover, “On A Monday Morning” by Lankum and “Another Good Year for the Roses” by Kurt Vile.
Happy 2024, peace and justice for all.